Furniture Building and Zirkle Building

Furniture Building, c. 1911 (37-39 W. Main Street)

This building was constructed sometime in the first quarter of the twentieth century, most likely circa 1911. From 1911 to 1917 it housed the Lawrence Furniture Company, then the Kenley Furniture Co. until 1925. Cromer Furniture opened here in 1925. The façade of the building dates to the mid-twentieth century. In the early 1930s, the Palace Theater moved to the second floor from its original site on East Main. It showed movies here for a few years before moving across the street to 50 West Main in 1936.

Zirkle Building, 1910 (29 West Main Street)

This building, built by Morris C. Miller in 1910, was home to the M.W. Zirkle Clothing Store until a fire in 1932 closed the store. In the 1930s, businesses such as Noel Hardware, the U-Save-It Store, and Dulaney’s 5¢ – $5.00 Store occupied the Zirkle Building. Leggett’s Department Store opened in 1936 and moved across the street in 1958, when it was replaced here by Cromer Furniture. Rose’s 5 and 10 opened a luncheonette in 1960, and the building held Jackson’s Hardware from 1960-1967. Today the Old Town Mall next door encroaches on the upper story of the Zirkle Building with cement panels, and the storefront is a contemporary replacement, though the quoins (the bricks forming the corners of the building) are original to 1910. Note also an original keystone over the righthand second story window.

Cromer’s Carpets, Furniture, and Appliances

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